Summary: Using the format of "The Night Before Christmas", an imaginative account of Joseph’s feelings at the nativity.

A worshiper’s task on Christmas Eve is always the same, and it is no simple one. The task is, first, to let the beauty of Christmas happen. It doesn’t require explaining or expounding. It just needs to happen.

But then the task becomes more complex, for we gather on Christmas Even around this table, the table of sacrifice, the memory of His death. And our worship takes on a serious and somber tone, knowing that He was born to die. How can we celebrate the joy of His coming while we face the signs of His departure?

This is a night, then, for the whole story of salvation to be told. This is a night to taste the joy of His birth, to sample the bitterness of His death, and then to sing of the wonder of His saving work.

All through the Advent season we have been saying it and singing it: this God has done, this profound and incredible thing, that the world might be saved. The creative word of God, His eternal will, has become flesh, one with us. And we celebrate God’s concreteness, God’s definiteness, God’s near approach to us, because He is redeeming us and saving us from our self-imposed disasters.

“His name shall be called ’Jesus’ … God saves … for He shall save His people from their sins.” One of you sent me a Christmas card that puts it well: “The Word did not become a philosophy, a theory, or a concept to be discussed, debated, or pondered. But the Word became a Person to be followed, enjoyed, and loved!”

Tonight I want to present this story in an unusual form. I think you will recognize the form if not the exact wording. I present it, after the Scripture reading, with apologies to the Rev. Clement Clark Moore, author of the famous poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas". Tonight it becomes for us, "A Vision from Joseph at Bethlehem”